Saturday, January 01, 2011

Mendocino

In which we go hippy (and a little dippy)

In addition to motoring trough Fort Ross, Thanksgiving weekend we stayed in the old coastal town of Mendocino. Situated on a rugged, windblown bluff above the Pacific just North of Big River, Mendocino was established as a logging and fishing community in the 1850s. Many New England loggers and Portuguese fishermen settled there. Today it is a vibrant artist colony where local artists and craftspeople ply their wares to the weekend tourists who pass through and stay there on their getaways from the City.

Rainbow view from the deck of the Navarro Winery on Highway 129, not far inland from Mendocino

Mendocino is also famed for its many water towers. Though only three of these are still active, dozens have been converted into housing and B&B lodgings. In the 1970s and ’80s, rapacious developers had planned major hotels and other infill within the town’s borders, but this was thankfully blocked by the local citizenry. At just five blocks wide and 10 blocks long, Mendocino today is one of the most picturesque villages on the California coast.

View from our room at the Stanford Inn by the Sea

One of the Stanford Inn's two pet llamas

The old farmhouse on the grounds of the Stanford Inn

One of Mendocino's famed water towers, or "pump houses," converted into housing

A naked yet picturesque water tower

The interior of Crown Hall, where Mendocino's Portuguese community used to gather (and sometimes still do), often used for a craft fair on the weekends

A view of Main Street from the cliffs

Amy getting wind-blown just before we got soaked in a downpour

Amy explores an alley in Mendocino decorated in driftwood

Christmas angels (and a seagull) adorn the steeple on an old church, now, I believe, a bank